


oblivion shall own you, death alone shall love you

by booksteaandcake



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Depression, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Suicide, Swearing, Teenagers, Triggers, bully!calum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 14:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6118891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booksteaandcake/pseuds/booksteaandcake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>**Title - You feel so lonely you could die by David Bowie</p><p>Um. This is just really sad and depressing. Character deaths - Michael is dead, Calum and his friends bullied him until it all got too much. Luke can't contain his anger anymore, and he can't hold onto the sadness either. I'm sorry. I don't have any clue why I wrote this, I felt inspired by Talk Me Down by Troye Sivan (The music video).</p>
            </blockquote>





	oblivion shall own you, death alone shall love you

It’s already dark despite the early hour and the air is cold, chilling Luke straight to the bone but he doesn’t even notice it thanks to the warmth of the alcohol spreading through his veins. He stumbles slightly over a twig because he’s entering the graveyard a stupid way, instead of going past the church and through the gates he’s come through the woods surrounding the area. Tears are falling down his face, they have been for hours already and he doubts they will stop. He hates that he has to come to the graveyard now. That’s why he doesn’t want to go through the gate, he doesn’t want the reminder - like the graves aren’t a reminder anyway. He never ever thought that to visit his friend he would have to go to the garden of the dead. Not just his friend, the love of his life. He’s still in his black suit, though it’s a mess; the tie is crooked and his buttons are undone, he would have changed but since leaving the funeral halfway through he’s not been home. He’s just been sat at the cliff where he and Michael always used to hang out together, drinking and remembering. As he sat leaning against the rock he had imagined that he was watching himself and Mikey when they were younger, mucking about and throwing things down to the ocean, hiding away from the world because nobody ever came up onto the cliffs. Then he had just thought about how Michael would have looked as he stepped over the edge and he had to leave. 

 

As he approaches the grave, he notices that he’s not the only one who wanted to visit the grave after hours. It’s dark but he can see two silhouettes and immediately he manages to work out who it is. The two boys are clinging on to one another, the taller of the two obviously close to crashing to the ground with weakness. They’ve been laying flowers down, or so it looks like - because they weren’t allowed to go to the funeral and do it then. Usually Luke would be scared - these are the boys who hurt him and Michael. But right now, he’s drunk and he’s not thinking straight. 

 

“Hey.” He says softly, a slurring murmur at first, but when they don’t look over he raises his voice to a scream and continues to stumble towards Mikey’s grave. “Hey! You have no right to be here!” 

 

As he steps closer he can see their faces properly - Calum’s eyes are puffy and his cheeks are red and Ashton looks like he’s not slept for days, his eyes are so sunken in his sallow face that he looks like one of the skeletons buried below their feet. Still holding onto Calum, gripping his arm tightly, Ashton moves slightly closer to Luke and holds a hand out as if to try and soothe an animal. Despite his newfound drunken bravery, Luke still flinches away from the sudden movement, bracing himself for some kind of smack. He doesn’t back down though, despite his short burst of fear. 

 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing here? Huh?” He yells, and he’s sobbing but he doesn’t care. Calum is sobbing too.

 

Usually he would stop and take a mental picture, he would be happy that he’s finally getting some kind of revenge on the boy who’s bullied him for years. Calum has been the worst, Ashton’s usually quite civil to be honest and is more just a cronie to the bullies but  _ Calum _ … he hurt Michael so badly. So to see him weak, to see him crying, it’s almost a triumph for Luke. It also just infuriates him though because Calum Hood has no right whatsoever to be crying over Michael. He’s the one who caused it, and Luke’s not afraid to let him know. 

 

“You’re not allowed to be here!” He continues to shout, and he gestures to the headstone. 

 

Michael Clifford

November 20th 1995 - November 20th 2012

Loving son and loyal friend 

 

Looking at it makes Luke’s heart lurch but he ignores it, and returns his attention quickly to Calum, ignoring Ashton as best as he can because the one person he hates the most on the earth is standing there, and he deserves every single drop of hatred that is burning through Luke, and some. 

 

“YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!” He explodes, and he wants to hit something so he does, he surges forward, pummeling Calum with his fists as hard as he can, right in the chest. “YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO CRY OVER HIM, HOOD!” He spits, and then he feels Ashton’s gentle but firm grip on his shoulders and the older boy pushes him back and away from Calum, putting himself between the two younger boys and holding a hand out to both, trying to break up the fight. 

 

“Luke.” He says quietly, and his voice shakes, “I know you hate Calum, I know, okay? But please… he deserves to grieve for his friend.”

 

That makes Luke lose it even further. He drops his now empty bottle of beer to the ground and shoves Ashton out the way, but he doesn’t try and hit Calum anymore, instead he just grips the smaller boy by the collar of his shirt and shoves him roughly against the wall, making themselves level so that he can look into the brown eyes he hates to much. He makes sure it hurts, but it won’t add up to the number of times Calum slammed Michael into the lockers at school. 

 

“Friend?” He says, echoing Ashton’s words with delay. “ _ Friend _ ?”

 

“Go on then.” Calum says in a whisper, and his sobs are silent but he’s shivering as tears cascade down his cheeks and he is shaking too, because Luke is angry, angry enough to kill Calum if he wants. “ _ Hit me.  _ I deserve it…”

 

Luke doesn’t, he just tightens his grip and pushes again so that Calum’s head knocks the bricks in the wall, and the boy winces slightly in pain. “I’m sorry, okay?” He pleads, “I just want to say sorry to Mikey.”

 

Him using the name Mikey, the name used with adoration and love by Luke and by Michael’s mother, it just infuriates Luke. “Why? It’s not like he’s here to forgive you.” He hisses. 

 

“I know, don’t you think I KNOW THAT!?” Calum tries to fight back, because he’s not used to Luke having the power over him, but Luke is angrier.

 

“YOU HAVE NO FUCKING RIGHT, HOOD.” He yells, his words are slurring because of the drink and he’s struggling to see straight. “You have no  _ fucking right  _ to be upset about Mikey.”

 

“Luke,” Ashton is behind him again, trying to calm him but it won’t work, when the older boy places a careful hand on Luke’s arm he flinches away. 

 

“You have no right to be upset when you’re the reason he’s dead.”

 

He feels Calum weaken at that, so he releases his grip slightly, allowing the brown haired boy to fall slowly to the wall, leaning against it for support - he’s obviously high or drunk too, he can barely stand - Ashton and Luke’s holds have been keeping him up and now he’s on the floor. He’s been left broken and weak too by Michael’s departure but he has no right to be.

 

“You can’t say that, Luke.” Ashton whispers in horror, and he gestures to Calum’s body curled up on the ground, “You can’t-”

 

“And  _ you  _ can’t act like Calum was Michael’s  _ friend _ ! And Calum can’t mourn for Mikey when  _ he  _ is the reason that Michael is dead, it’s fucking true and you know it.” Luke says to Ashton, but then he turns back to Calum and he himself gets lower too, sinking to his knees and grabbing Calum’s shirt again just so that the older boy will look him in the eye. 

 

“You could have stopped it.” Luke says in a low growl, “Hell, you could have even made it so it never fucking happened. But you didn’t, did you?”

 

“Please.” Calum says through tears, “Please don’t, I  _ know  _ what I did-”

 

“I don’t think you do.” Luke spits. “You abandoned him, Calum. When Mikey needed you most, you abandoned him. When he was injecting anything he could find into his veins so that he could numb the pain, the memories of being shoved into lockers, the word  _ faggot  _ being hissed down his neck by  _ your  _ friends. You could have stopped it.”

 

He gets up, leering over Calum, and he’s crying but he’s angry too now, a thundering storm ready to crash down any minute, revenge for what’s happened to Michael because it’s all Calum’s fault. 

 

“He was your friend.” He whispers then, “He was your fucking friend, Calum. And then you left him, because he likes guys. And then you bullied him and me, you’ve been torturing us for two years now, and you have  _ no right  _ to mourn for him now. Michael deserves tears from  _ good  _ people, not from  _ you _ .”

 

And now he’s all talked out, because all through that he’s been reliving it, reliving the pain that he and Michael have been going through, and the physical pain that’s been inflicted on Mikey by Calum and his friends and his own fucking dad, he’s feeling it all himself. He slumps slightly, and Ashton is there, catching him and supporting him. It’s quiet but for all of their ragged breaths and all three of them are sobbing noisily now, and Calum is murmuring words into the dirt that he lies on. When it’s been too long, when even the sounds of their sobs are wearing out, Calum manages to get to his feet, using the wall to support himself. 

 

He meets Luke’s eyes. 

 

“I’m so sorry, okay?” He says and his voice cracks, “I can never apologise enough, and nobody hates me more than I do right now, and I will never be able to take back what I have done. I can try and make it up to you, but I know the only way for me to make it up to you is to disappear off the face of this earth. I can never make it up to Mikey though. It’s too late.”

 

Luke closes his eyes because he doesn’t even want to look at Calum anymore, he doesn’t terrify him like he does in the corridors of school, he just makes Luke feel incredibly sick. 

 

“I’ll never be able to take back what I have done. Mikey will still be dead. He’ll always be fucking dead and I know it’s all my fault. I… I was afraid. Years ago, when we were still kids and he told me he loved me it - it terrified me. So I just tortured him, and I’m so sorry. I came here tonight because… I wanted to tell Michael I love him. I know now it’s worthless but-”

 

“Shut up.” Luke says, and he shakes Ashton’s hold off, he almost forgot that the older boy was holding him and he gets to his feet. “Your love is worthless because your sick, sick bullying is what killed him. And you’re wrong. However much you hate yourself right now, I promise the hatred I feel for you is ten times worse. I will never, ever forgive you - the only thing that will make me give up on hating you is if you die yourself. You don’t deserve my sympathy, Calum.” 

 

He shakes, he wants to punch that face a million times, and it still won’t make up fro the pain Calum has caused both Luke and Michael. Luke doesn’t know how Michael ever loved Calum… how he continued to love Calum even through the bullying when he had Luke right there, Luke who loved him more than words.  _ Loves  _ him, not loved - Luke’s love will never be in the past. He doesn’t though. 

 

“Even though I fucking hate you, and Michael should do too. He deserves an apology. But then you better fuck off and never come back, never act like you have the right to mourn for Michael. You killed him a long time ago, Calum.”

 

He doesn’t even really understand what he is saying and Calum probably doesn’t either, but even so he staggers so that he can stand closer to the grave and he falls to his knees. Luke turns to look at him, and Ashton does too. They watch as Calum breaks down. They watch as he apologises a thousand times and says he never thought it would get to this - he says he loves him. That’s the part that hurts Luke the most. If he loved him, how could he torture him so fucking much? And the worst thing is, he knows that if Michael were alive and Calum was saying all this stuff, he would forgive the bastard in a heartbeat. When Calum is done, he gets to his feet, and he turns and leaves the graveyard without another word. Ashton pats Luke’s shoulder awkwardly before following, and Luke is there alone. It’s time that he does what he came here to do. 

 

He’s run out of drink but he picks the empty beer bottle back up and raises it in cheers in the direction of the headstone. He wishes he could be with Michael, he wishes he were drinking with Michael properly, smiling and managing to laugh even amidst the darkness, the blur of the bullying and the pain. He wishes that this night was different. He wishes he could go back to being a kid, he and Calum and Michael had all been friends once. Luke didn’t love Michael and Michael didn’t love Calum - they just adored one another as young, childish friends and nothing more. But it’s too late, and Michael’s gone and he left Luke all on his own. 

 

He thought he wouldn’t be able to stop, but now Luke is all cried out, and the tears are dried to his skin and his heart and soul are the only things bleeding now. 

 

“I love you.” He whispers. He presses his fingers to his lips, and then gives the kiss to the headstone before walking back past the grave.

 

He stumbles through the woods, back the way he came and by the time he gets to the cliff, where it all began, he can see the sun preparing to rise in the distance. The memories come back, of him and Michael playing here when they were kids. Calum used to be with them too, and he’s tried to block the memory out but now he can see the little tanned boy as well, boys being boys when they were all young and carefree. He takes one last look around and then he steps towards the cliff edge. He looks down. They used to always look down, and get terrified of the height and giggle and run away - once or twice, they would dare each other to jump off but obviously they never would. Until one day Michael did - Michael was the first one to get dared when he was nine. 

 

Luke was the second.

  
The memories speed up in his. The giggling of children, running little legs, playing hide and seek and kicking balls around - the number of footballs they dropped down to the water by accident… He smiles, greeting the waves that swallow him with gratefully open arms. 


End file.
